WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — When a new ride opens at Playland, the anticipation is a sublime part of the experience. In the case of the iconic fun park’s latest limited-time only attraction, the buildup was centuries in the making.

Other amusement parks have offered a chance to travel through time. The experience usually involves traveling past dioramas on a track as a recorded soundtrack details man’s voyage through history, but for those waiting in line for the ferry tour of Westchester’s Long Island Sound Shore, it was clear that this was something much different.

As Playland grows smaller behind the wake of the Admiral Richard E. Bennis, and the world’s largest rubber duck shrinks in perspective to its bath-sized inspirations, something magical and entirely unexpected happens.

Most of us on this boat spend our days and nights on the patches of land rolling by the gunwales of the boat, but this change of perspective adds a new sense of wonder about the sights and sounds of our daily lives on land.

And then things really get interesting.

Barbara Davis, Co-Director of the Westchester County Historical Society, City Historian for New Rochelle, and former proprietor of “Waterfront Tours,” beings to tell the story of how we came to this moment. From our distant seaborne perches, our eyes are opened by evidence of early indigenous camps, the first European settlements, the gilded age excesses, an era of silver screen dreams built in Mamaroneck rather than Hollywood, and the still-standing mansions of heroes of the industrial revolutions and railroad barrons alike.

As Davis narrates our voyage from present to past and back again, we can feel the weight of history as the Sound Shore played a pivotal role in creating a new nation. And we can almost see our ancestors building a reputation as shipbuilders that put Westchester County on the map in a way that isn’t tied to our big sister to the south.

She also related a little about the tragedies that earned the Long Island Sound the ominous nickname, “The Devil’s Belt.”

“Whenever someone tells me they learned something new about the place they’ve lived in for their whole lives, it makes it worth it,” Davis told Patch. “I’m really glad to hear it and I think it inspires people to learn more about their world.”

The hourlong tour of the Sound Shore reaches a pinnacle as the boat rounds a look and Glenn Island comes into view. Davis takes us to a place that sounds more like legend than history.

Starin’s resort, on what is now known as Glen Island, was very much the predecessor of Playland. Starin’s, referred to as “America’s pleasure grounds,” was the first theme park in the country on a scale that hasn’t been matched since.

And then we are soon back on the Playland Pier as if we never left (despite the stilt-walking performers who were at the gangway to welcome us back). Although we traveled nearly the entire Westchester shoreline, it seems somehow as if we were never any farther away than the top of the Playland Ferris wheel.

Like any great thrill ride, the Long Island Sound voyage made us want to line up again and do it all over. Alas, the roundtrip tours operated by NY Waterway will run twice on August 17 and August 31, with departures from Playland Pier at 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. on each day. Tickets cost $15 and can be purchased here. Each ferry holds 240 passengers.

Hopefully, Playland’s largest attraction will be back season after season. But for now, I need to find that Dragon Coaster before I leave the park.